'I tried to take it back!' Pat Boone recalls 'terribly embarrassing' experience meeting Queen Elizabeth
Pat Boone "embarrassed [himself] terribly" in front of Queen Elizabeth.
The 88-year-old singer met the late monarch - who passed away in September at the age of 96 following a 70-year reign - for the first time 1958 when he headlined a royal variety performance at the London Coliseum but upon their second meeting in 1962 at the for the Royal Film Performance, did not think she would remember him so ended up fluffing his words in front of her.
He told Fox News Digital: "I did two royal command performances. One when I was still in college. Get this, I was doing rock 'n' roll, but I was a teen idol suddenly. I was still in college at Columbia and married already. And I went to my first command performance and sang for the Queen and Princess Margaret and the whole royal family, and then came back again about six years later and sang for her again.
"I embarrassed myself terribly because I didn't think she would remember that first time. So she's walking down the gauntlet of all the other artists that are part of that particular command performance: Peter Finch, Peter Sellers, Claudia Cardinale and me. And I know all I have to do is bow and say, ‘Your Majesty.’ And if she says anything to me, I respond. And you don't extend your hand. If she extends her hand, you take it, but you don't extend your hand. You just say, 'Your Majesty.
"OK, I'm blasé. I'd already done it once before, but I did have a little fluttery stomach the closer she got to me. And suddenly the Queen is standing in front of me. She comes up to about here on me. And she didn't extend her hand, but she said, ‘We met before.’ I said, ‘We did?’"
The 'Ain't That A Shame' hitmaker went on to add that he asked the Queen where it was they had met before unsuccessfully trying to correct his error and now has a picture of himself and the monarch during the moment that made the newspapers at the time.
He added: "I meant, ‘You remember that?' But the first thing that came out of my mouth when she said, ‘We met before,' the Queen of England, was ‘We did?’ When was that? Really?I mean, how embarrassed can you be? And I have a picture of me on the London Times newspaper front page just after that happened. And the Queen is smiling with a big smile and Claudia Cardinale is laughing. Guess what she's laughing at?" I fluttered to try to correct it, but it was already out of my mouth."
